Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Announcement of additional funding for National Park Authorities

Trudy Harrison: Our National Parks protect some of our most precious landscapes and wildlife. The government is providing £4.4 million in additional funding to the country’s ten National Park Authorities to support them to deliver their services. This represents a 9% increase on their annual core grant. The government provided an uplift on the core grant for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) last year.The funding will help protect vital assets and will provide more opportunities for people to enjoy National Parks. It could also be used to support access and engagement activities such as the creation of new trails, residential programmes and mobility schemes. It will support programmes helping to conserve the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of these protected landscapes. In addition, the government’s Farming in Protected Landscapes scheme will also be extended until March 2025. The programme has been delivered across 10 National Parks and 34 AONBs since 2021. This will enable National Park Authorities and local AONB teams to continue delivering outcomes for nature, climate, people and place.

Treasury

Spring Finance Bill 2023

Victoria Atkins: The Spring Finance Bill 2023 will be published on 23 March. Explanatory Notes on the Bill will be available in the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office. As usual, a full copy of the Budget resolutions will be made available after the Chancellor’s Budget statement on 15 March. This includes resolutions made under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968 for those measures that are expected to come into effect ahead of Finance Bill Royal Assent. In line with the approach to tax policy making set out in the government’s documents ‘Tax Policy Making: a new approach’ (published in 2010), and ‘The new Budget timetable and the tax policy making process’ (published in 2017), the government published draft legislation for the Spring Finance Bill 2023 on 22 July 2022, which is available on gov.uk.

Annual European Union Finances Statement

John Glen: I am today laying before Parliament, “The European Union Finances Statement 2022 on the implementation of the Withdrawal and Trade and Cooperation Agreements’” (CP 759). This is an annual publication and the 42nd in the series. This year’s edition is the second in the publication series to cover the UK outside the EU. It continues to include an updated government estimate of the financial settlement on withdrawal from the EU, which can be found in Annex A, contributing figures in Chapter 2 and 4, and Annex C outlines the cumulative payments with their constituent parts, along with HM Treasury’s forecast. This year’s edition follows the model of the previous edition, based on the European Scrutiny Committee’s recommendations on how to present the information. The cut-off date for reporting for this publication is the 31st of December 2022, as these statements will continue to be published every calendar year. The focus of this statement remains the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). Similar to last year, the Statement separates backward-looking reporting on the payment of net liabilities made by the UK from HM Treasury’s forecast of outstanding liabilities. Chapter 2 gives a breakdown of the April and September 2022 invoices received from the EU and their payment during that calendar year, of £5,030,023,023. Chapter 3 of the statement provides detail on the verification arrangements that HM Treasury has undertaken. HM Treasury works with the European Commission and its implementing partners to ensure their systems and controls over financial reporting are suitable for the specific requirements of the Withdrawal Agreement. Chapter 4 breaks down forecast outstanding UK net liabilities to the EU from January 2023, providing a point estimate of £13.2bn (€14.9bn) of the total outstanding net liability to the EU. HM Treasury estimates that the current net value of the financial settlement is £37.9bn. This estimate is within the original estimated range of £35-39bn and shows a material reduction against last year’s estimate of £42.5bn. This is primarily due to the decrease in the estimation of the UK’s share of liability for EU pensions. Taking into account the financial settlement with the EU, the Government has determined how £14.6bn of spending by 2024-25 can be allocated to its domestic priorities, rather than be sent in contributions to the EU. HM Treasury has presented a reconciliation to the methodology adopted in previous years to enable comparison on a consistent basis. This is provided in annex A along with an explanation of some the principal assumptions underpinning forecast methodologies prepared for different purposes. This statement reports on the status of EU Programme association in Chapter 5.